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Chocolate, butter, and brown sugar is an irresistible dessert combination, and here’s a way to enjoy it with a crispy layer underneath and a touch of salt. Just like it does when paired with caramel, the salt brings out the sweetness and makes each bite finish with a “wow!”

This was printed a few days ago in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution list of the best recipes of 2018. I was almost turned off by the idea of using saltine crackers. It seemed too easy, too much of a shortcut, and I didn’t think it would look as elegant as the picture made it out to be. But it was being recommended by Wendell Brock, who writes about food for the AJC and whose recipes and articles I really enjoy. So I gave it a shot and was so glad I did.

Brock called the combination of flavors and textures “heaven,” and I’d agree. 100% delicious.

Oh, and it was a fun recipe to make with my children. They laid out the crackers, sprinkled the chocolate morsels, and sprinkled the nuts and watched me do the pouring and spreading.

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C degrees. Line a 12-by-18-inch rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Lay the crackers out in one layer, as close together as possible, filling the sheet.

Melt butter and brown sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently. When the butter has melted, raise the heat and bring to a boil. Keep it at a boil for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After 3 minutes, add the vanilla, give it a good stir, and pour evenly over the crackers. Spread the mixture around with a spatula if needed. Don’t worry if the surface isn’t completely covered. You just don’t want it pooling in one place.

Bake the crackers for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle the chocolate morsels over evenly over the top. Let sit for 5 minutes, then spread the chocolate evenly over the crackers. Sprinkle pecans and salt over the top. Leave to cool, then place in refrigerator about an hour to set the chocolate.

Break into pieces and store in an airtight container for up to five days.

Printed in the AJC and adapted from “The Southern Synpathy Cookbook: Funeral Food With a Twist” by Perre Coleman Magness.

Here’s a little treat that doesn’t take long to make. You can adapt it to any holiday with sprinkles, keep it plain, or try drizzling with icing or white chocolate. It’s a fun snack that would be great to set out at parties or nice to box up and give as a gift.

All you need are large marshmallows and chocolate morsels — I used peppermint chocolate morsels — then sprinkles, icing, or white chocolate morsels.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper (the baking sheet must be rimmed so sprinkles don’t roll away and make a mess when you decorate).

In a bowl, melt a large handful of chocolate morsels in the microwave. Do it in 20- or 30-second intervals, stirring in between, to make sure all the chocolate is melted and none of it burns.

When chocolate is completely melted, you must work quickly. Take a large marshmallow and dip it into the chocolate, then set it on the parchment paper with the chocolate side up. Sprinkle it right away, then do the next one. Refrigerate once they’re all decorated so the chocolate hardens, then serve.

If drizzling with icing or white chocolate, let the first layer harden in the fridge before decorating. Melt the white chocolate as above.

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The most reliable cookbook I own is one from the Moosewood Restaurant. The recipes always work and are always delicious. And they’re healthy. The restaurant, a collective that started in 1973 in Ithaca, New York, is famous as one of the first to highlight vegetarian, natural, and locally sourced food.

Moosewood has a number of cookbooks, and recently I found a treasure — this 1987 copy of “New Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant,” one of their early ones. It’s interesting to see them carefully describe ingredients that are common these days, such as coconut milk, miso, and polenta.

The first recipe I tried from the book was this coconut milk soup with navy beans. It’s a thick soup, made substantial with the beans and a small amount of rice, but kept light with the fresh lemon juice and chopped tomatoes. I served it with flounder sautéed in butter and lemon juice. A light, crispy salad would be nice as a side dish.

I made a few tweaks, including using canned beans in place of dried in order to save time.

In a large pot, heat oil on medium heat and saute onion, garlic, and spices until onions are translucent. Add peppers, tomatoes, salt, sugar, and lemon juice and simmer for 5-10 minutes, until the peppers are tender.

Stir in coconut milk, rice, and beans and simmer for 10-15 minutes, until flavors are blended. Serve garnished with toasted coconut flakes.

1. Bake some chocolate cupcakes with cupcake liners.
2. Prepare a thick buttercream frosting and tint it with Halloween colors like purple, orange, green, and brown.
3. Pipe spikes all over the top of the cupcake. (Squirt a small blob and bring the tip of the frosting bag straight back up.)
4. Put candy eyes randomly between the spikes.

As you can see, we didn’t just do spikes — we had fun making crazy monster faces. This is one Halloween treat that doesn’t require a specific shape or design, so just use your imagination!

It’s yet ANOTHER recipe I’ve had in my binder for ages. It’s from Parade magazine, the Sunday insert in many newspapers, and it was from the late Sheila Lukins, the magazine’s former food editor and famed author of “The Silver Palate Cookbook.”

That book, and her New York restaurant that inspired it, ushered in a new style of cooking in the late ’70s and early ’80s — one that emphasized flavors and seasonings and was still easy to make. Although this gumbo recipe was printed in the magazine much later, probably around 1995, it is still a great example of that kind of cooking.

I simplified the recipe even further, using rotisserie chicken instead of the chicken she laid out in the recipe. But I’ve included her original instructions for that below, in case you don’t have a rotisserie chicken or you want to make it all from scratch.

The only tough part was taking a nice picture of such a basic dish — gumbo may be delicious, but it’s not elegant — so I have no photo to share. But I hope you’ll try it and see for yourself how wonderful Lukins’ cooking was.

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Salted peanuts, raisins, almonds, cashews, and M&Ms are in this trail mix, a copycat of the prepared trail mixes you’ll find at the store. Bonus: Making it at home costs less, especially when you find some of these ingredients on sale.

This is a favorite of ours for lunch boxes, after-school snacks, and snacks at work.

Adjust the amounts here to your liking, but this mixture was the closest I came to store-bought. Just mix it all in a bowl.